Rebuttal to Carolyn Hawley’s letter
Ms. Hawley, for the past 40 years I’ve harvested our local deer during the legal season, and yes the deer herd is the lowest I’ve ever seen! But why? Was this caused by man? Well yes, it was.
Near 60 years ago now things started to change. The environmental movement began with good reason, but today overregulation is destroying our back country. Our forests are badly overgrown to the point they are dying. They are so thick sunlight and rain cannot reach the forest floor, so the plants deer eat cannot grow. Man did that. The chaparral (brush country) is grown so tall the deer cannot reach the new growth — you know: their main source of food. Man stopped burning brush.
Mountain lions have special protection and will never be controlled again. Man did that! Project Coyote is working to stop shooting coyotes. Man is doing that. AB 711 requires the use of solid copper bullets (non-toxic), which will not expand like copper jacketed head bullets and will pass through our light, thin skinned deer like a hot ice pick though soft butter, never to be found. Man did that. Then there’s blue tongue: outbreaks kill hundreds of deer. That happens and is natural, but very sad.
Ms. Hawley, Lake County once was a powerhouse of deer production. Half a million acres of prime deer habitat ignored, so the only deer that remain are hanging around our homes. And yes, Ms. Hawley, man is responsible for that! A 90 percent reduction of our local deer herd.
In my opinion the environmentalist or eco-terrorist would rather see our local deer herd go extinct than be hunted.
In closing I would like to remind all readers about President Theodore Roosevelt, a hunter who preserved places like Yellowstone and Yosemite — you know: the national park system. Millions of acres were there is no hunting allowed.
Joe G. Welz, Clearlake Oaks
Don’t believe them
By now it should be obvious that for the most part the Republicans in Congress have the American people as their second priority. Their top priority is to stay in office. There is no other way to explain how time after time, on every single issue they cave in and give President Obama what he wants. They have the perception that to go against Obama would be to put their own political careers in jeopardy.
Currently, except for Senator Tom Cotton, practically all of the Republicans in Congress are feigning outrage at Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. The truth is that the Senate had the chance to vote on it as a treaty as they have independent power to do this according to the Constitution. Had the Senate done this Obama would have been stopped. But as it stands now, Obama has the upper hand as Republicans don’t have enough votes to overcome his veto.
So don’t be fooled when you hear these Republican politicians complain about Obama’s deal with Iran. Their actions tell you all you need to know. They had the chance to do the right thing, but they took the easy way out and surrendered the treaty power of the Constitution. Now we’re stuck with a bad deal.
Bill Kettenhofen, Kelseyville
Funny, but sad
I don’t own a TV. However, I have been back east with some of my family for the last three months and so I have been exposed to some TV. I discovered that I have been missing out on a very entertaining comedy show. It is called Fox News. This show consists of men and women, black and white, who have one thing in common: When they hear the name “Obama,” like Pavlov’s dogs, they are stimulated. One of the team will go into a manic, semi-hysterical rant (where do they get the energy?) against the president, and when that one starts to lose steam, another jumps in and says virtually the same thing in a slightly different way. Today, the topic was that the White House was tardy in flying the flag at half-mast to honor the marines who had been martyred recently. And then another picked up the same theme and documented the numerous occasions when the White House had been late to lower the flag. Finally, after flagellating Obama about the flag, they began to move toward the reason why: (drum roll) Obama, it turns out, is afraid to oppose radical Islam! Apparently, Fox News, was not fooled by all the soldiers, bombs and drones that Obama, the Commander-in-Chief of the armed services, has sent to fight radical insurgents in the Middle East. All of that was, in effect, a “misdirection” play to take our attention away from the real proof of his dereliction of duty: the delay in lowering of the flag at the White House.
When I stopped laughing, I got very somber. It is scary to me that there are people that listen to this drivel and, instead of laughing; they think they are being informed.
But there was more to the show: Apparently, in an attempt to give legitimacy to the mantras of manic chants, they bring out an “expert.” These experts, or at least the ones that I have seen, are ex-military, or in some way spokespeople for the military industrial complex. They offer expertise about how Obama is giving Iran nuclear weapons and so on.
According to Fox News, Obama has never done anything right, and is a dupe of radical Islam. However, the American people elected Barak Obama president, and, not easily deterred by his alleged ineptitude, elected him again! And fox are supposed to be clever!
Nelson Strasser, Lakeport
